Re: Boris Johnson deserves his own thread

The latest poll has Johnson ahead 54-46 in the run-off. I just wonder how much of this is down to the Evening Standard effect - by all accounts it's turned into a propaganda pamphlet for Johnson since the campaign kicked off (I was living in London in 2008 and I recall there were similar complaints then). It's worth asking whether it's really acceptable for a free sheet - particularly one as high-profile as the Evening Standard - to take such a blatantly politically biased line.

_________________Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.

The latest poll has Johnson ahead 54-46 in the run-off. I just wonder how much of this is down to the Evening Standard effect - by all accounts it's turned into a propaganda pamphlet for Johnson since the campaign kicked off (I was living in London in 2008 and I recall there were similar complaints then). It's worth asking whether it's really acceptable for a free sheet - particularly one as high-profile as the Evening Standard - to take such a blatantly politically biased line.

Of course it isn't, but who's going to stop it?

_________________There is no polite word for a man like Ian Duncan Smith. He is just the dregs at the bottom of ambition's barrel.

Standard today trumpeting £110m for cycling projects and all axed by Johnson from before, and worth 2 years Western Congestion Zone income he threw away. They did an even handed bit but then said "Boris will get more money out of central government". An argument they didn't make in 2008.

Excellent. Standard worried the "granny tax" could cost Johnson the election. Seeing Johnson wanted the 50p tax rate to go altogether, he would presumably have had to hit ordinary joes harder than Osborne did.

Let's see you "maverick" your way out of that. Maybe Lynton Crosbie can identify some more Muslims or something.

Boris Johnson’s campaign are offering supporters the chance to attend a drinks reception with the London mayor – for a whopping donation of £2,012. The elite group of donors is styled as an exclusive “private members club”.

_________________"It is the duty of a newspaper to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."

Boris Johnson’s campaign are offering supporters the chance to attend a drinks reception with the London mayor – for a whopping donation of £2,012. The elite group of donors is styled as an exclusive “private members club”.

It is understood that Sands, the Evening Standard deputy editor, had said she would resign to join Greig as his deputy on the Sunday tabloid, because Lebedev had wanted to take his time in deciding who would take the top job.

However, Sands changed her mind, partly at the urging of London mayor and friend Boris Johnson, who is understood to have said she would regret not sitting in the editor's chair.

_________________Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.

In which both come off badly. I'm sadprised* that Labour have stuck with Ken, it seems like they need someone new, untainted, and young to run. As an outsider I find both of them quite disagreeable as candidates, although Boris slightly more due to his shadier past.

*aw yeah, fuck you 'disappointed'

_________________“Let me make my position clear: I wouldn’t want to win on an old-fashioned leftist platform. Even if I thought it was the route to victory, I wouldn’t take it. ”-Anthony Charles Lynton Blair